German president Christian Wulff has finally resigned, after countless scandals were unveiled by the German press. The majority of Germans consider this move to be overdue.
In case you haven’t heard anything about his scandals prior to his resignation, let me enlighten you.
The affairs started in early December, when German newspapers discovered certain questionable and unfair advantages, that Christian Wulff may have had profited from personally. They unveiled, that Wulff supposedly received a home loan with conditions, that no other private person would ever be offered by a bank. The rate of interest was much lower than normally charged by any bank in Germany.
This particular story started, when Wulff had received a private loan of 500.000 € from the wife of a wealthy business man in October 2008, in order to buy a house. At that time, Wulff was prime minister of Lower Saxony. In February 2010, he replied to an oral enquiry in state parliament of Lower Saxony, that he has not had any business relations to entrepreneur Egon Geerkens, whose wife had granted the home loan to Wulff, in the last 10 years.
By the beginning of December 2011, German tabloid newspaper “Bild” wanted to publish a story on Wulff’s private loan. On December 12th, Wulff left a message on the mail box of editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann, that he does not want the story to be published and at least wants the release of the report to be postponed. Apparently, he also threatened Diekmann and spoke of a “final breach” and “war” with publisher Axel Springer AG, if the story were to be released.
But fortunately, Diekmann was not intimidated and released the first report on Wulff’s loan the following day. This was around the time, I started to follow the story and boy, we were all in for an endless list of scandals.
Wulff later regretted in a written statement, to have denied business relations to the Geerkens family in front of state parliament of Lower Saxony. On December 22nd, he openly apologized for any misunderstandings caused on his side. Simultaneously, he fired his spokesman Olaf Glaeseker, who was later accused of corruption and bribery. On January 19th, Glaeseker’s private and official premises were searched on order of the department of public prosecution of Hannover.
I honestly think that you can judge a person’s character by looking at the people he keeps closest to himself. Most people in Germany already considered Wulff to be a liar at that point in time.
On January 4th, Wulff did something many people consider to be incredibly stupid. He gave an interview on public television in order to clear things up and openly apologize for attacking and threatening the press, which is a violation of Germany’s fifth constitutional law. Wulff announced in the interview, that he will answer all questions the press has on the matter of his private loan and that he wants transparency in this matter.
What he did the next day, was the exact opposite. Wulff let his attorney publicize a rather short summary of the affair, which lacked his aforementioned transparency in all aspects. By that time, the entire series of scandals involving the president of the Federal Republic of Germany made other politicians, even of the same party, doubt Wulff’s credibility and honesty. Unfortunately, chancellor Merkel did not want to make any statement about the affair at that time.
The affair surrounding the private loan with the Geerkens family, which was later transformed into a home loan at BW Bank with questionable interest rates as well, was the main story behind Wulff’s string of scandals. He also profited from private vacations, free of charge for Wulff and his family – and paid for by wealthy businesspeople, allegedly “friends” of Wulff. Apparently, this was already the considered standard when Wulff was prime minister of Lower Saxony.
Personally, I could not care less if he took advantage of gratis vacations, these are peanuts in my eyes. But I honestly cannot support a president who owed a private person 500.000 € only a few years ago – this can indicate bias on his part. I don’t even want to think of how much Wulff has damaged the office of presidency in Germany. I am sure he also damaged Germany’s reputation in association with the term corruption. There are certain cultures on our planet who do judge a people by their honesty and decide whether or not they should do business with them.
Unfortunately, we can’t measure the financial damage Wulff has and will cause by having dragged the office of presidency through a series of scandals, not comparable with any previous German politician.
As I said before, most Germans considered his resignation overdue. Wulff clung on the office of presidency like a dog would on a bone. Politicians are supposed to know when to let go of their jobs before causing irreparable damage. In a certain way, one could compare Wulff to president Assad of Syria, minus the violence.
So what made Wulff finally let go of his job? What scared him so much, that he finally loosened his grip on the office? On February 16th, the department of public prosecution of Hannover filed for the abrogation of Wulff’s legal immunity as president of the Federal Republic of Germany, in order to be able to begin with investigations of corruption! I think that is enough said at this point to let people decide for themselves, what kind of person the former German president is; I will monitor the outcome of the investigation closely.
What makes me sad, is the fact that it took this long for such a disgraceful person to step down as president. It really bothers me, that there was no pressure from chancellor Angela Merkel to make Wulff step down. Because nowadays we all know, once the credibility of a politician and most of all, a president of a nation that is responsible for an entire continent in a political and financial point of view, is in doubt, chances of a recovery are infinitesimal – 2011 was a great example of that.
The Germafrican 